PM Modi’s underwater dip in Dwarka also has a message for Ahirs

While pictures and videos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi paying obeisance to Lord Krishna under water in the mythical submerged city of Dwarka on Sunday hogged the limelight, his Ahir outreach during his two-day visit to Saurashtra went relatively unnoticed.

The PM’s visit came close on the heels of the Gujarat government signing an agreement with Mazagaon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd to promote submarine tourism for the mythical city. During his visit, he launched development projects worth Rs 4,800 crore, including the Sudarshan Setu which connects Dwarka city to the island of Bet Dwarka.

But, the push was also spiritual. Emerging out of the waters of the Arabian Sea after his dive into the waters, Modi said: “More than ‘saahas (courage)’, it was ‘shraddha (faith)’ for me.”

Taking a leaf out of his book from Ayodhya, Modi went on to invoke Lord Krishna before his address, and showered praises on the women of the Ahir community – an equivalent of Yadavs in the Hindi heartland, who see themselves as descendants of the god. Comparing the “Ahiraniyo (Ahir women)” to mothers who took the “ovarna (worries off the heads of near and dear ones)”, Modi mentioned the ‘Maha Raas’ performed by 37,000 Ahir women on December 23 and 24 last year in memory of Usha, considered the daughter-in-law of Lord Krishna.

Modi also held a roadshow where he thanked the Ahirs, a community that dominates the Jamnagar Lok Sabha seat, covering the districts of Jamnagar and Dwarka. The seat was once held by the Congress’s Vikram Madam, but it was wrested by his niece Poonam Madaam of the BJP in 2014 and retained by her in 2019.

Two of the seven Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha constituency – Kalavad, Jamnagar Rural, Jamnagar North, Jamnagar South, Khambalia,